Just got Cynthia Brewer's new Map design book. Have quicly gone through it and here are my first impressions. Definitely geared towards ARCmap users but not exclusively. No surprise and it's a reasonable thing given that it is published by ESRI.

Many of the illustrations are screen shots and as such the graphic quality is not always what you would expect from a a cartography textbook...but given that many maps are designed for screen use these days, it is probably adequate and maybe necessary.

No surprise given Ms. Brewer's specialty there are three chapters on colors including a chapter (appendix really) with the Color Brewer charts. IMO these are probably worth the price of the book, especialy if you missed the issue of C&GIS with the Color Brewer article in it. From my initial impresion this is by far the stronger material for people with experience in map design, but seems very accessible.

An interesting chapter entitled "Beyond Default Marginal Elements" also promises to be interesting.

I look forward to comparing this to Mr. Krygier & Mr. Wood's book which I expect in the mail tomorrow....

JimBlakeslee

Posted 05 September 2005 - 12:27 PM

I am also a fan of Cynthia Brewer's work, not just because she is a fellow Penn Stater.

Martin is right that it is "no surprise and a reasonable thing" that ESRI books are about ESRI products. But I am consistently surprised at how these books creep into GIS circles as if they were authentic, merit based discussions of larger GIS topics. Of course, they are ESRI specific guides.

For example, I was shocked to see a "review" of an ESRI Press "GIS Web Services" book in the Winter 2005 Cartographic Perspectives, alongside a legitimate book from Johns Hopkins Press. Isn't this akin to reviewing a product brochure or corporate sales presentation? The review even faults ESRI Press collectively for limiting their works to ESRI based examples, and failing to include non-ESRI approches. It is absurd! ESRI Press is not a "publisher," but a corprate printing department. How can you do a book review of a vendor guide, even if it is dressed up to look like a real industry book?